Bryan Fischer is now his own trigger warning: part 2
...or "Bryan Fischer: neo-eugenicist?"
TW: Bry- oh you read the title!
You can read the introduction to this series here, which explains my reasons for starting this group of posts.
Fischer: on his biological view of race
TW: dehumanizing racial metaphors, slut shaming, (physical and mental) abilism, eugenics, coerced sterilization
Bryan Fischer has been one of many contributors to the growing presence of cultural racism in the past decade - particularly in the form of "Western" Christian-influenced demands for assimilation to his cultural norms from those of Native Americans and Muslims. In spite of this form of racism being very modern and "in vogue", given the supposed War on Terror, his word choices have revealed at times a passion for more historic variant of racism. Fischer has spoken of Muslims' "darkened, benighted lands" and Native Americans' "savagery" - revealing his penchant for an older language of racism, even if very contemporary in target and strategy.
In a few additional statements, however, it becomes clear that Fischer hasn't just very consciously ridden the recent wave of cultural racism, particularly targeting Muslims, but has been keeping alive former eugenics-centered logic. This, much like the eugenics of old, comes in the form of pseudo-scientific racism, that focuses (with anecdotes and poorly sourced facts, it should be remembered) on birth rates, on sexuality, and on intermarriage. From that horrible, unfortunately unforgotten place has come the idea, which Fischer promotes, that black Americans "rut like rabbits" and consequently have abused and overloaded welfare programs (which he likewise claims "incentivized [sic] fornication rather than marriage"). The sheer gall, reminiscent of Jim Crow era racism, necessary to refer to black Americans in such terms, as subhuman animals concerned largely with sexual gratification, is nauseating.
(Fischer has since edited his statements in response to public outcry. You can read his now modified article here.)
Fischer works in both directions - after coming to an anti-welfare stance because of a starchily racist paranoia about black welfare recipients, he later frets about the "illegitimacy" rate within the Latin@ community and how that reduces their capacity to be (in his narrow definition) a "pro-family" community. Fischer explains "the illegitimacy rate among Hispanic women is over 50%. I’m not sure pro-family values are as strong in the Hispanic community as Dr. Land [a pro-immigration social conservative] wants to believe". There's potent slut-shaming in these statements which fits into this larger paranoia over what ethnic groups are having the most babies, which clearly (in Fischer's mind) relates to marriage, the role of women, and sexual propriety. In spite of the differences in description, Fischer again defines an entire racial group (of course, never Whites, though) within terms of fertility and sexuality.
In keeping with his contemporary islamophobia, however, Fischer mixes these traditional "farm animal" comparisons of the "stock" of people of color with a new racist concern about individuals of Middle Eastern ancestry. Based on Nicolai Sennels' crackpot "research" (more accurately described as irrational, baseless claims about Muslims, more on that here), Fischer parrots that "massive inbreeding in Muslim culture[s] may well have done virtually irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool, including extensive damage to its intelligence, sanity, and health".
This nonsense is the perfect "intellectual" framework within which to raise the historic concerns that people of color had racially-determined lower intelligence quotients (IQ), and Fischer doesn't fail to argue that uncited "research shows that children of consanguinous [intra-family] marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much slower in inbred babies". He likewise dimly implies that children of (ancestral) Muslims are more likely to suffer from cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy, and other genetic disorders. He links this to not only physical disabilities but also mental ones, obliquely arguing "[t]he closer the blood relative [presumably in marriage], the higher the risk of schizophrenic illness [presumably in children]". It's unclear how much of Fischer's statements are honest, but he clearly believes (as he's recently restated these opinions about everyone of Middle Eastern or Central Asian descent, available here) that Muslims aren't merely ideologically dangerous but genetically contaminating.
From these momentary slips in his longer racist screeds it becomes clear that the modern feel of Fischer's racism (that it's primarily cultural and fixated on conversion and assimilation) are almost cosmetic in how clearly they've been grafted onto arguments so clearly lifted from eugenic theories. His statements, compared to traditional eugenics, have the same concern for controlling (primarily female) sexuality so that it matches an individual's race and class, the same paranoia of those who are physically or mentally different, and the racism that permeates every inch of the argument. His solutions are ostensibly different from historical eugenicists' - mostly in that he concludes these screeds with the same inevitable call for conversion to Christianity rather than coerced sterilization or violent methods. His solutions are, nonetheless, terrifyingly vague and I think there's valid room for worry about where he runs with these ideas. Even if he doesn't come to the same conclusions as his historical precedents, until he changes those underlying ideas about people of color, he will push for dangerous policies.
TW: Bry- oh you read the title!
You can read the introduction to this series here, which explains my reasons for starting this group of posts.
Fischer: on his biological view of race
TW: dehumanizing racial metaphors, slut shaming, (physical and mental) abilism, eugenics, coerced sterilization
Bryan Fischer has been one of many contributors to the growing presence of cultural racism in the past decade - particularly in the form of "Western" Christian-influenced demands for assimilation to his cultural norms from those of Native Americans and Muslims. In spite of this form of racism being very modern and "in vogue", given the supposed War on Terror, his word choices have revealed at times a passion for more historic variant of racism. Fischer has spoken of Muslims' "darkened, benighted lands" and Native Americans' "savagery" - revealing his penchant for an older language of racism, even if very contemporary in target and strategy.
In a few additional statements, however, it becomes clear that Fischer hasn't just very consciously ridden the recent wave of cultural racism, particularly targeting Muslims, but has been keeping alive former eugenics-centered logic. This, much like the eugenics of old, comes in the form of pseudo-scientific racism, that focuses (with anecdotes and poorly sourced facts, it should be remembered) on birth rates, on sexuality, and on intermarriage. From that horrible, unfortunately unforgotten place has come the idea, which Fischer promotes, that black Americans "rut like rabbits" and consequently have abused and overloaded welfare programs (which he likewise claims "incentivized [sic] fornication rather than marriage"). The sheer gall, reminiscent of Jim Crow era racism, necessary to refer to black Americans in such terms, as subhuman animals concerned largely with sexual gratification, is nauseating.
(Fischer has since edited his statements in response to public outcry. You can read his now modified article here.)
Fischer works in both directions - after coming to an anti-welfare stance because of a starchily racist paranoia about black welfare recipients, he later frets about the "illegitimacy" rate within the Latin@ community and how that reduces their capacity to be (in his narrow definition) a "pro-family" community. Fischer explains "the illegitimacy rate among Hispanic women is over 50%. I’m not sure pro-family values are as strong in the Hispanic community as Dr. Land [a pro-immigration social conservative] wants to believe". There's potent slut-shaming in these statements which fits into this larger paranoia over what ethnic groups are having the most babies, which clearly (in Fischer's mind) relates to marriage, the role of women, and sexual propriety. In spite of the differences in description, Fischer again defines an entire racial group (of course, never Whites, though) within terms of fertility and sexuality.
In keeping with his contemporary islamophobia, however, Fischer mixes these traditional "farm animal" comparisons of the "stock" of people of color with a new racist concern about individuals of Middle Eastern ancestry. Based on Nicolai Sennels' crackpot "research" (more accurately described as irrational, baseless claims about Muslims, more on that here), Fischer parrots that "massive inbreeding in Muslim culture[s] may well have done virtually irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool, including extensive damage to its intelligence, sanity, and health".
This nonsense is the perfect "intellectual" framework within which to raise the historic concerns that people of color had racially-determined lower intelligence quotients (IQ), and Fischer doesn't fail to argue that uncited "research shows that children of consanguinous [intra-family] marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much slower in inbred babies". He likewise dimly implies that children of (ancestral) Muslims are more likely to suffer from cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy, and other genetic disorders. He links this to not only physical disabilities but also mental ones, obliquely arguing "[t]he closer the blood relative [presumably in marriage], the higher the risk of schizophrenic illness [presumably in children]". It's unclear how much of Fischer's statements are honest, but he clearly believes (as he's recently restated these opinions about everyone of Middle Eastern or Central Asian descent, available here) that Muslims aren't merely ideologically dangerous but genetically contaminating.
From these momentary slips in his longer racist screeds it becomes clear that the modern feel of Fischer's racism (that it's primarily cultural and fixated on conversion and assimilation) are almost cosmetic in how clearly they've been grafted onto arguments so clearly lifted from eugenic theories. His statements, compared to traditional eugenics, have the same concern for controlling (primarily female) sexuality so that it matches an individual's race and class, the same paranoia of those who are physically or mentally different, and the racism that permeates every inch of the argument. His solutions are ostensibly different from historical eugenicists' - mostly in that he concludes these screeds with the same inevitable call for conversion to Christianity rather than coerced sterilization or violent methods. His solutions are, nonetheless, terrifyingly vague and I think there's valid room for worry about where he runs with these ideas. Even if he doesn't come to the same conclusions as his historical precedents, until he changes those underlying ideas about people of color, he will push for dangerous policies.